Has Jewish history been sufficiently attentive to the accomplishment of its women leaders? Probably not, except for the women of the Bible and those who happened to live during the 20th century. Indeed, the achievements of most non-rabbinic figures who lived between the destruction of the Second Temple and the Enlightenment are shadowy at best. This has been especially true of our Sephardic ancestors.
With this in mind I was particularly drawn some years ago to the under-researched life of Doña Gracia Nasi, the 16th century international banker whose escape network saved thousands of victims of the Inquisition. Born in Lisbon in 1510, she also spearheaded a boycott of the Italian port of Ancona after the Inquisition murdered 23 conversos there. And she ended her life by persuading Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to grant her a long-term lease on an area around Tiberias for the resettlement of her refugees. In addition, Doña Gracia was a patron of the arts in true Renaissance style. Many of us know about this famous Portugese conversa from a small book on her life (Doña Gracia of the House of Nasi) written sixty years ago by Cecil Roth. Not much more has been available since, except for a handful of academic papers.
A six-year odyssey into fading documents and obscure works in seven countries and thirteen different languages B Dutch, Old French, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Croatian, Old English, Ladino, Portuguese, German, Hebrew, Aramaic and Turkish written in Arabic script brought to light some remarkable new finds and corrected many misconceptions.
What emerged, once I was able to explore these original writings more fully, was a new Doña Gracia B a woman whose actions, agonies, setbacks and strategies were surprisingly modern. For example, contrary to popular belief, I found that Doña Gracia was never known by her husband’s name of Mendes. Like other women of means in the 16th century, she retained her birth name, Beatrice de Luna, until she took her original Hebrew name upon arrival in the Ottoman Empire, where she could live openly as a Jew. When she was not satisfied with the medical treatment offered by her one her doctors she immediately sought another.
She would constantly mix profitable business dealings with her community work on behalf of the refugees she had taken under her wing, trading bribes and favors with the elite of the day. Even a journey alone through the Adriatic port of Ragusa (modern day Dubrovnik) on her way to the Ottoman capital of Constantinople became a moment to pause and extract a preferential trading agreement from the local authorities.
Researching her era B the height of the Renaissance B immediately laid to rest the notion that women did not operate independently in the commercial world. Doña Gracia may have been among the most celebrated. But she was not the only one. Jewish women were extremely active in the merchant arena, especially those in Italy and the Ottoman Empire. Some were also accomplished Hebrew and Talmudic scholars.
Most of these women had been catapulted into the positions of leadership, like she had been, following the early death of a husband. Yet like many modern business women the opportunity came at a price. Doña Gracia could not remarry and bear more children without making the sacrifices she clearly refused to make. The laws of those days would have immediately handed control of her money and business to her new spouse. Nor were her siblings supportive. Not only did she have difficulty with her sister, Brianda. A brother, Aries, also tried to steal funds and undermine her efforts.
She was clearly tough and determined when it came to collecting debts, whether from her fellow Jews or the royal courts of the day. Even rabbis did not escape her wrath when she felt their actions were misguided. We may be under the assumption that rabbis were not challenged centuries ago as readily as they are today. Her life shows that this was not so.
The efforts of her husband, Francisco Mendes and brother-in-law, Diogo Mendes, prior to her taking over the bank, also came as a surprise. We tend to think of Jews in past centuries as powerless in the face of persecution. In this instance the record belies that assumption. It shows a sophisticated and coordinated rear-guard action against the expansion and grisly deeds of an Inquisition that was spreading throughout Europe. From assassinations to murder plots, to bribes and even retaining their own lobbyist at the Vatican, they kept up the pressure.
Doña Gracia’s personal maneuvers in a Europe plagued by the widespread
use of an Inquisition also tell us a great deal. For one, she always made sure
she had a pre-arranged exit strategy B a way to leave any city or state in which
she lived in case arrest became imminent. And when arguing on behalf of her
fellow conversos or in pursuit of her own agenda, she never settled upon a single
course of action. Parallel tracks were always embarked upon to ensure, at minimum,
partial success.
Particularly useful were the files of the notaries in the various cities where
she lived. Notaries were used to record all official transactions, such as wills,
commercial loan agreements and leases, as they are often are today. Once it
was possible to establish which notary she favored (much like identifying a
family lawyer) such as Giacomo Conti in Ferrara, it became easier. The dispatches
of ambassadors and papal representatives became another rich source.
Serendipity played a role, too. A chance remark by a scholar in London led to me the papers of Lucien Wolf, one of England’s most respected Jewish historians of the early 20th century, now housed in one of the manuscript libraries at University College, London. Wolf had apparently taken a special interest in the dealings of the House of Mendes (the name of the family bank) in Antwerp and had assigned a French-speaking archivist to retrieve relevant documents in Brussels and Antwerp. Many items culled from that search matched the period I needed, including personal stories about Doña Gracia. But Wolf must have been too busy, or not in good health, because he died without doing anything with his cache.
We discovered, for example, that the real reason why Doña Gracia fled Lisbon for Antwerp soon after the death of her husband, Francisco Mendes, in 1534 was not because of the imminent arrival of an Inquisition, although this would have been a factor. It was because King John III of Portugal had demanded that her 2-year-old daughter be brought up at court (a ruse to separate mother and daughter from part of their inheritance). And Doña Gracia had been determined that this should not happen.
We learned a great deal more about how her escape network operated by locating testimony given by the converso refugees as they were being interrogated on their way into Antwerp. Also still extant was a transcript of an angry letter written by Queen Marie, Regent of the Netherlands, immediately after a face-to-face meeting with Doña Gracia over the issue of why Doña Gracia was refusing to allow her daughter to marry the Iberian nobleman the Queen had chosen for the young woman. To defy the Queen this way comes across as an awesome act of courage.
In Ferrara we found the will of her niece, Gracia La Chica, and La Chica’s husband, Samuel Nasi. There was also an inventory that set out in glittering detail the possessions of her sister, Brianda, who died in Ferrara in 1556, as well as an intriguing correspondence showing the complex dealings that Doña Gracia had with Diane de Poitiers, the celebrated mistress of the French king.
In addition, we came across commercial documents that shed new light on Doña Gracia’s business ventures; leases and bills of sale for properties the family rented or owned in Lisbon, Antwerp and Ferrara; a verbatim account of a series of Inquisition trials in Venice that involved her sister, Brianda. With these papers in hand it was also possible to see Brianda in better focus. In reality, she was not nearly as wicked as prior historians have implied. Rather, Brianda demonstrated a very human face that included a need to separate herself from her overpowering older sister.
So material is out there if we are willing to search creatively. In the end
I was able to produce a 600-page biography, fully annotated, that reads like
a thriller and allows us to pay our respects to a remarkable woman of courage,
brilliance and persistence whose deeds deserve to be recorded in full.
Andrée Aelion Brooks is the author of a new biography of Doña
Gracia Nasi called AThe Woman who Defied Kings@ (Paragon House, 2002). She is
an Associate Fellow at Yale University and a former contributing columnist to
the New York Times. She can be reached at andreebrooks@hotmail.com.